Coming to America
by Trolley
Summary: *CHAPTER 6 UP! No, I haven't died!!* A new case involving illegal immigrants has the gang stumped. Please R/R!
1. The First Strike

Disclaimer: I don't own this stuff. Happy? Tehe, enjoy!  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"Steve, we're out of sauce! I'll go make some more!" Jesse Travis called to his preoccupied partner across the extremely crowded BBQ Bob's.  
  
Steve Sloan hurriedly carried plates of food and trays of drinks to their respective tables as he wondered where he and Jesse's help, a new Mexican fellow that Jesse had hired by the name of Jose' Garcia, was. He was supposed to have been to the restaurant almost an hour ago. "Okay Jess, hurry up though."  
  
Jesse rushed to the back of the restaurant to the refrigerator. As he opened the door, he thought he smelled a rather strange, unpleasant odor. *Stupid rotten meat.* As he knelt down to get the barbeque sauce ingredients, Jesse noticed something blocking his way to the ketchup. This was the least of the young doctor and restaurant owner's worries as he realized that as he was moving the obstruction, he was touching human flesh. Very cold human flesh. The shock of finding a presumably dead body in the refrigerator coupled with the hard knock on the head he gave himself when he jumped back in surprise sent Jesse swirling quickly into unconsciousness.  
  
Steve, meanwhile, was having just about as hard a time, but, contrarily, with living people. As choruses of "Where's my food?", "Can I get some service here?", and occasionally an, "Excuse me, where's the bathroom?" rang out across his restaurant, Steve retreated to the back to retrieve Jesse, who was taking entirely too long to make the stupid sauce.   
  
"Jesse, get your butt out here!" Steve shouted, getting no response. "What's taking you so--Jesse?!" Steve ran over the small figure on the floor, halfway inside the ajar walk-in fridge. Kneeling down and checking for a pulse (out of force of habit),  
Steve gave a shout as he discovered the source of Jesse's sudden incapacitation. Yep, it was dead alright. Steve grabbed the phone to call the cops as he checked on Jesse, who was beginning to come to as a result of Steve's efforts to arouse him.   
  
"Jesse, what happened?" Steve calmly asked his jumpy friend, while at the same time trying to relay that information to the police.  
  
"I'm not sure," Jesse groaned, rubbing the back of his head. "I just found the body stuffed under this shelf, then I jumped back and hit my head, that's all." Jesse squinted and took a closer look at the body. "Hey! That's Jose'!" he exclaimed as Steve hung up with the police.  
  
"The cops will be here in a few minutes," Steve announced, putting away his cell phone. "What'd you say?"  
  
Jesse pointed a trembling finger at the cadaver. "It's Jose', the guy I just hired!"   
  
Steve suddenly cringed as he heard a crash and yells coming from the dining room. "I'll be right back," he excused him self to his coworkers, living and dead. He walked up to the register and ducked as he saw a plate flung at his head. "Look, I'm sorry everybody, but you're all going to have to leave! This is an official crime scene. Take a coupon on your way out," Steve continued to announce amongst many groans and a piece of meat or two throw at him. Once all the former customers were gone, he wiped himself off and went back to the back to continue his investigation. "Can you tell what happened to him?" he asked as Jesse seemed to be looking over the body.  
  
"Gunshot wound to the head," Jesse announced, reaching up and rubbing his own aching one.  
  
Who would do this? Steve tried to think. Murder a restaurant employee and hide him in the refrigerator?  
  
"Sloan, are you two back here?" Steve's thoughts were shattered by the entrance of Lieutenant Morrison, a few uniformed cops, and, of course the county medical examiner and the Head of Internal Medicine of Community General Hospital, who, when alerted to the disturbance at his son's store, just had to come along with Amanda.  
  
"Yeah Bob, over here, by the fridge."  
  
Morrison led the gang over, shivered, and took a look at the body. He shivered again at the cold air from the refrigerator. "Ooo, that's not pretty. Any idea what happened?" he asked, taking out his notepad. Amanda began examining the corpse.  
  
Steve turned the stage over to Jesse. "Well, I found him back here stuffed up under the shelf while I was making some barbeque sauce. I realized I had found a dead body in my restaurant, it startled me, and I jumped back and hit my head. That's all I remember until Steve came back and woke me up."  
  
"He died of a gunshot wound to the head," Amanda announced, looking up from the body.  
  
The Lieutenant jotted a few things down. "Do you have a name for this fellow?"  
  
"Yeah, I just hired him, his name's Jose' Garcia. Nice Mexican guy," Jesse mumbled, still a bit disoriented.  
  
Mark, momentarily loosing interest in his snoopings for more medical purposes, knelt down next to Jesse. "Let's take a look at that head." He gently prodded and 'hmm'ed' at the lump at the back of Jesse's head, then asked the younger man to follow his finger. "Well Jess, you've got quite a bump, but I think you'll be alright."  
  
Jesse smiled tiredly as Mark got up to get him an ice pack.  
  
A young rookie who had been assigned to the Morrison looked thoughtful. "Hey Lieutenant, doesn't this look kind of like that murder over at the Bucket O' Cluck yesterday?"  
  
"Hmm, you're right Hobson, it does look a lot like that, single gunshot wound to the head, employee of the restaurant." He jotted this down.  
  
"What happened?" Steve enquired, having had the better part of the week off to take care of Bob's.  
  
Lieutenant Morrison looked up from his notepad. "You know that chicken place a couple of blocks away? Well there was a Cuban girl found dead in the ice machine yesterday, not a pretty sight. She turned out to be an employee. "  
  
"Do we have enough similarities to call it a serial killer?" Mark butted in.  
  
The lieutenant chuckled. Everyone at Steve's precinct knew and loved the old man, but it always amused them when he got himself into the murder investigations. "It looks like it, but we're not too sure yet. The girl who found the body couldn't tell us much, she passed out when the corpse rolled out of the ice bin."  
  
Steve snickered. "There's a similarity right there!"  
  
"I did not pass out!" Jesse exclaimed defensively, wincing. "I hit my head."  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
HEY YA'LL!! SO, WHAT DO YA THINK? PLEASE REVIEW!! I'LL TRY TO GET ANOTHER CHAPTER UP SOON, BUT I'M A BIT STUMPED! PLEEEEEASE REVIEW! 


	2. A Little Progress

Steve was stumped. He had almost nowhere to go with this case. He was also worried about Jesse. Mark had decided to keep him in the hospital for observation, both for the hit to the head and the shock of discovering his newest employee dead in the refrigerator. He so far wasn't suffering any unusual effects, but the always adamant Mark just had to be sure.  
  
Steve ignored the other piles of paperwork cluttering his desk and focused on this case. What did he have? A little. Both were employees of the restaurants in which they were murdered, and both killed by a single bullet wound to the head.  
  
As he waited for the officers questioning the girl at the Bucket-o-Cluck to get back with some information, Steve decided to call his dad and let him know that he was going to go down to the Department of Immigration and talk to someone in charge. It so turned out that the only obvious similarity or connection between the two murders was that they were, in fact, both illegal immigrants.  
  
Perhaps there was some wacko who was fed up with the huge numbers of illegal immigrants coming into California every year. The vast number of immigrants that migrate to America, especially California, every year deplete US funds by using more of our services than they could ever pay in taxes. This information, along with a variety of other facts about immigration was pretty much all that Steve, Cheryl, and Mark could initially get from the Department of Immigration. But once they left the "Learn About Immigration" display in the lobby and found someone in charge to talk to, they got a little further. The man they talked to informed them, to the meager extent his knowledge allowed, about crime bosses who would send immigrant operatives into America to accomplish some kind of illegal operation. But that was all the information he had for the sleuth team.  
  
"Well, I guess it gives us something to go on." Steve and Mark walked out of the building only a little more enlightened than when they had arrived.  
  
"It's just too bad we couldn't get any names."  
  
As Steve started up his truck and followed his father down the highway, he decided he would go to the hospital to check on Jesse.   
  
***  
  
"Have you gotten anywhere with the murder?" Jesse asked eagerly as Steve entered his room.   
  
"Well, hello to you too!" Steve chuckled.  
  
Jesse calmed down and said in a sarcastically meek tone, "Why hello Steve, how kind of you to drop by." His tone changed back to excited. "So what have you got?"  
  
"Not much, honestly," Steve answered, sitting down in a chair next to the bed. "How are you doing?"   
  
"Oh, I'm fine. I wish Mark would let me go, though. I just have a mild concussion and possibly mild shock. No big deal." He ignored Steve, who just shook his head. "Soooo, what have you got?" he persisted.  
  
"Seriously, practically nothing. All they could tell us was about some guild of crime bosses that get illegal immigrants into America to accomplish illegal business and --" He was cut off by his pager. He glanced at the number. "And it looks like he's struck again. You get some rest."  
  
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Jesse muttered as he watched his friend leave the room.  
  
**********  
  
Okay, I know it wasn't much to wait so long for, but I'm still developing the plot! Please tell me whatcha think! 


	3. Not Again...

The next day, the gang sat around a table at BBQ Bob's, trying to stay serious while working on the case.  
  
"Well I looked up all the victims, and they all have a recent arrest record. Coupled with the crime boss theory--"  
  
"And so the bosses send them over, they commit the felony, and as soon as they get caught, the boss kills them off the cover his tracks," Mark finished.  
  
Jesse gave one of his disappointed looks. "But that was too easy! The solution never comes that quick!"  
  
"That was the easy part, Jess," Steve explained. "The hard part is finding the perps before we find anymore victims." He paused to take a sip of his drink, trying to avoid telling his overeager, over worrisome father and best friends just how that was going to be done.  
  
"So how is the LAPD planning on doing that?" Amanda asked, although her women's intuition was already telling her.   
  
"They're sending someone undercover," Steve explained, trying to avoid the rest of the truth.  
  
"Oh, and this person that's going undercover wouldn't happen to go by the name of Steve Sloan, now would he?" He gave his son that "I'm-your-concerned-father-and-you'd-better-not-lie-to-me" Look.  
  
Steve nodded sheepishly. "But it's not dangerous this time, I promise! I-I can't talk about it, but it's not!" He looked at his watch, then back to his friends at the table. "And you three aren't getting involved this time!"  
  
"Yes, Daddy," Jesse muttered cheekily to his back.  
  
Steve turned around to see his buddy smiling mischievously at him, Amanda trying not to spit out her drink, and his father simply smirking in that way that he does when trying to hold back laughter.  
  
As Steve left the restaurant shaking his head, the three remaining friends turned back to the situation at hand.  
************  
I know,I know, it's short! But that's how I do chapters. I don't like keeping people in suspense, and so I do a lot of short chapters. Which would you guys rather, short frequent chapters, or longer, less frequent? Tell me about it! (Along with how ya think it's coming!) Thanks! 


	4. The Assignment

"Steve'll be alright, Mark," Jesse consoled.  
  
Mark smiled reassuringly. "Thanks Jess, I know. I just wish he would tell us what it's all about.  
  
"Yeah." Jesse got a gleam in his eye. "He's probably going to go undercover to infiltrate the guild of crime bosses, then he's going to pick a fight with another one over something or other, and then in big dramatic flair, he's gonna get him in position, and cuff him!"  
  
"Jesse, Mark's worried about his son," Amanda teasingly explained as if to a six-year-old. "He doesn't want to hear your crazy ideas."  
  
MEANWHILE, AT THE PRECINCT:  
  
"Okay Sloan, you're going to go undercover and infiltrate the guild of crime bosses. Then you're going to pick a fight with another one over something or other, be creative. Then you'll do the hokey-pokey or whatever, and in big dramatic flair, get him a a vunerable position, and boom, arrest him." Captain Newman concluded the rather unorthodox briefing.  
  
Steve nodded intently. This was a most unusual assignment. *Sounds like something Jesse would come up with.* "What else do I need to know?"  
  
"The boss you're going to be mainly working calls himself Joey Spinelli. As far as we can tell, he's the head of the whole organization. You'll go by the name of Oscar Mantello."  
  
Steve wrinkled up his nose mischievously. "Oscar?"  
  
"Suck it up, Sloan."  
  
***  
Mark chuckled. "Chalk one up for Jesse," he muttered after Steve had explained his undercover assignment.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Oh, nothing."  
  
***  
"Jesse, get that look out of your eye," Amanda warned as she watched the young doctor's coffee cup overflow as he traveled farther away from reality. "You and Mark have to stay out of this case."  
  
Jesse stopped pouring his coffee and realized the mess he had made, picking up a nearby towel and wiping off the counter. "I know, I know. I just wish I could help at least a little bit. After all, I was the one that found the body, and got a mild concussion from it."  
  
Amanda giggled at her friend's cheeky grin. "Just try to keep yourself out of trouble this time," she warned with a grin of her own.  
  
"Yes, Mommy." Jesse retreated from the Doctor's Lounge, narrowly missing a playful whack from the file folder in Amanda's hand. 


	5. What have you gotten yourself into this ...

Steve was becoming accustomed to his new temporary surroundings. He had infiltrated the hideout of Joey Spinelli as a sort of make-shift doctor in case of any "altercations." He knew enough about medicine to get by. He was a bit surprised, though, at how readily he had been accepted, but he was pretty sure that Spinelli and his slightly less than bright henchman didn't suspect him. Steve hadn't found any listening devices in his quarters, and they seemed to like him pretty well. He was keeping a journal of his time in the hideout, mostly because it was part of his assignment. He knew it was important to the files and perhaps future cases. But it was so boring! Perhaps we'll take a look at it some other time. But for now, let's get back to the action. This assignment wasn't as tough as Steve had originally thought it could be. All he had done was collected vital information about the crime guild. And stopped an attempted murder. No big deal. All he had to do now was arrest Spinelli. But Captain Newman wouldn't let him until they had more "incriminating evidence."   
  
Steve scrawled down the rest of his day in the journal. If Newman was going to make him do this, he figured he would have fun with it, making his boss sift through the worthless facets of everyday life to get to the important stuff. He realized he had been hanging around Jesse too long. Just as Steve was finishing up documenting his last restroom visit, he heard Spinelli call for him.  
  
"Eh doc! Come 'ere a minute!"  
  
Steve put up his notebook, warily walked out of his room and, at the horribly unexpected sight of his very pale best friend lying on the floor, had to choke back a "Jesse!?"  
  
"Doc, I need ya to take a look at what Bernie dragged in."  
  
Steve tried not to run over to his, shall we say, fallen comrade. He knealt by Jesse's side and quickly looked him over.  
  
Steve was the last person Jesse expected to see leaning over him. One of the factors that helped keep him quiet was that he thought he was hallucinating.  
  
"Uh, I-I'll just take him back to my room to look him over." Steve carefully lifted Jesse and took him to the back room.  
  
A billion things were racing through Steve's head. He was, of course, worried. Jesse didn't seem to recognize him. He only hoped his young friend was alright. But he was also rather angered with the doctor that he had gotten involved when he wasn't supposed to be. "Jesse, what is going on?" Steve demanded as he not terribly carefully lay him down on a cot.  
  
Jesse winced, both from the pain and from the anger evident in his friend's voice. Yep, it was definitely Steve. "It's a long story. Oh, just so you know, I have amnesia." He continued despite an even angrier look from Steve. "Just play along."  
  
"Jess, how do you manage--"  
  
Jesse started to cower. "Let's just say I got in way over my head, which is really killing me right now, along with my shoulder and side, so please, just don't get mad at me." He looked absolutely pathetic. "By the way, what are you doing here?"  
  
Steve walked over to the cabinet and took an armful of medical supplies. "If you happen to remember correctly, I was the one who was assigned to the case."  
  
"Yeah yeah, save the lecture, please!" He began to shed his shirt for the examination, then realized how painful it was to undress with a wounded shoulder.  
  
"Okay, this time, I'm the doctor," Steve reminded. "Now where does it hurt?" he quipped.  
  
"Everywhere," Jesse snorted, then got to business. "I have a gunshot wound to the shoulder, I think I have a concussion, 'Big Bob' out there gave me quite a kick in the ribs, to wake me up I assume, and to top it all off, I may as well be dehydrated. You wouldn't happen to have any painkillers lying around anywhere?"  
  
Steve finished pouring a glass of water from the pitcher on the dresser. "Way ahead of you." He helped Jesse lift his head an he swallowed the pills, along with the rest of the water, obviously very grateful.  
  
"Jess, I don't understand it." Steve tried not to be frustrated with his friend, at least until he recovered. "I'm the cop. How do you always manage to get in trouble?" he asked, waving his finger in front of Jesse's face, checking for a concussion. He then lifted Jesse's head and looked at the wound, as gently as possible washing it out.  
  
"Hey, what can I say? It's a talent." He carefully lowered his head. "How's it look, Doc?"  
  
Steve gave him a little glare. "Well, as far as I can tell, you have a concussion, and I don't think it's mild this time." He dressed the wound, albeit rather sloppily, and moved down to the shoulder, ripping off the rest of the sleeve. "Ooo. That looks painful."  
  
"Yeah, I bet. How do you think I feel?" Jesse winced. "I've lost a lot of blood, too. You wouldn't happen to have any transfusions lying around, would you? Type O?" he tried.  
  
"Sorry Jess, that's gonna have to wait." After carefully washing out the wound, he asked, "Do I need to take the bullet out?"  
  
"Oh please no! Sorry Buddy, but I don't exactly trust you to do surgery yet." Jesse closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. Well, as deep as his swollen ribs would allow. He was absolutely exhausted from all the pain and blood loss. His head was pounding and he just couldn't focus. "Just clean and dress it."  
  
Steve followed his orders and then moved down to the ribs. "Do you think any of them are broken?"  
  
Jesse tried to look down at the large purple bruise on his ribcage. "That's why you're here." He gave Steve one of his cheeky grins. "I think they're just bruised."  
  
"Yeah, that's what you said about your ankle when it looked like that," Steve grunted.   
  
"Hey. Ankles can be tricky. I think I can tell with the ribs."  
  
"Mm-hm." Steve wasn't quite convinced, but who was he to argue with an MD degree? "So what do I do with them?"  
  
"Nothing. Just put some ice on it."  
  
"Alright. Can I get you anything to eat while I'm in the kitchen? You must be starving."  
  
Only then did Jesse realize how hungry he was. "You know what, I am. I don't care, just get me some food. Oh, and don't forget -- I have amnesia."  
  
"Right." Steve quietly closed the door behind him. He was really worried about Jesse. He didn't care how he had gotten himself into this. He just hoped that they could both get out alive.  
  
"Hey Oscar, how's the stray?" Steve found Joey's new "term of endearment" for Jesse absolutely degrading. Well, it was kinda funny… Not that his own alias was much better. "He's still not remembering anything. I'm getting him an icepack for the bruised ribs." Steve hurried into the kitchen, trying to avoid the crime boss for more reasons than one. Once there, he quickly made an icepack and a ham sandwich and hurried back to Jesse.  
  
"Hey Jess, ham sandwich okay?" The only answer Steve got was a heavy, even breathing. He walked over to his friend, who had fallen asleep as soon as Steve had left the room. He gently positioned the ice pack over the bruised ribs. Jesse didn't even stir.  
  
Now I'm sure that you, as the poor suffering reader, are wondering what the heck happened to Jesse! Come on, you knew he had to get into trouble! So, let's see just how he did it this time.  
  
*******************  
. . .Coming up in the next chapter! Hey, a bit of a longer chapter this time! My muse is on her way back, and she better help me out with this Scarlet Letter paper I have to write. Anyway, you guys better be happy, I got in trouble for working on my stories during Spanish class today! Tehe! "Como?" and a simple "Si" doesn't go over too well when trying to answer a question in Spanish. I admitted to doing an "otra cosa" and had to put my notebook away. ANYWAY, at least she likes me... don't you all wish you cared? Anyway, don't worry, I'm still trying to work on both stories, and I've even got the next chapter started! So, thanks for reading, and please continue to review! It really helps! Thanks, and God bless! 


	6. Smitten

At last, I have returned to the world of fan fic writing! Just seems I can't keep my groove during the summer. My muse, Konstantinos, always goes on vacation. So, I apologize, and I hope you all still like me, and I'll try to do better, and, since no one's read the story for like five months, I'll fill you in (unless you wanna go back and read it again!). Okay, Jesse finds a body in BBQ Bob's and they find ou that it's related to a string of murders of illegal immigrants. They discover a crime ring that helps forgeiners get free passage to America for the completion of a crime, and if they get caught, they kill them, to cover their tracks. So Steve goes undercover at the hideout, and Jesse turns up there injured. In this and the forthcoming chapters, we find out what happened. So, without further ado, Chapter Six!  
  
  
TWO DAYS EARLIER  
  
Jesse couldn't sleep He didn't want to get in trouble, but he just knew that there was something he could get involved with. He planned to go to the library…or something, and look up some…stuff, or, whatever, once he got some…sleep.  
***  
Since Mark and Amanda were safely at work, and Steve was also too far away to get on his case, Jesse decided to do a bit of investigating on his own. But all he could think of to do was go to the police station and possibly library and looking up files on the victims. As it turned out, that was all he needed. The library only gave him what he already knew, so he hoped the police station would give him a few more recent findings.  
  
"Hi Dr. Travis!" a young desk worker greeted. Her ice blue eyes sparkled as she recognized Lieutenant Sloan's young doctor friend who frequently visited the station with Steve. And she, of course, as most other red-blooded human females do, thought he gorgeous.   
  
"Hey Iva!" Jesse waved back at Ivanova Krupskya and approached her desk. He thought the new Russian girl at the precinct was very cute, and had actually been teased by Steve about flirting with her. But he figured that his chances weren't so bad, as Steve had also told him that Iva had talked to him about his young friend frequently. He decided to be brave, and but on his best fake hick accent. "Hey baby, are you from Tennessee, 'cause you're the only ten I see!" He then grinned and winked humorously.  
  
Iva wasn't sure what to think. She had no idea what this guy was talking about. He said she was a "ten", and implied that she was from Tennessee, when it was quite obvious that she wasn't American. So she put on her best cute, confused look. "I'm sorry Jesse, I don't understand."  
  
Doh! Stupid, stupid! "Never mind." He laughed it off smoothly, then remembered why he was there in the first place. He explained what he needed, and was a bit taken aback by Ivanova's reaction. She seemed a little flushed as Jesse explained Steve's undercover assignment, and was a bit reluctant to let Jesse see the public files that he needed to. When she finally conceded and retrieved the files for him, Jesse could tell she was shaking. "Are you alright?" he asked, concerned.  
  
"Yes, yes, I'm perfectly alright," she stammered uncertainly. "I-I just need something to eat, I'm sure. If you'll excuse me, Doctor." She winked seductively as she left Jesse confused and concerned.  
  
Iva hurried to the bathroom and began to pace. She had always done that when she was scared. "They've found us out, they know all about us, we'll be shut down, imprisoned, deported, maybe worse. I can always deny involvement. Oh, that'll never work, Spinelli would never cover for me. But I haven't done anything illegal yet. But it won't matter, I'll still have been involved, this is an illegal operation. Perhaps my punishment won't be as severe, since I haven't carried out my crime." This is the rough translation of Ivanova's quiet Russian mumblings to herself. In case you haven't noticed, Iva was a part of the illegal immigrant crime ring. She got the job at the precinct (how ironic) as a cover and to pick up some good, honest cash. She felt horrible about this illegal operation, but there was simply no other way to fulfill her lifelong dream of living in America. Her parents had died in an avalanche when she was the mere age of seven. Needless to say, life was hard for an orphan in Russia. It's a story enough to make you cry. But not now. Anyway, while living in the streets she heard of this too-good-to-be-true organization that offered free passage to anywhere in the world for a mere small fee. But, of course, if it's too good to be true, it probably is. Especcially this one. Her felony was planned to be a rather easy one, for her at least. All she had to do was steal a car, any car, and bring it to her crime boss. She knew all about cars, but, of course, she couldn't let Spinelli know that. She played dumb so she could stall while she sought out a vehicle that she could obtain honestly. But no such luck had happened yet. But now, since the organization had nearly been discovered, she would have to… distract the young information-seeking doctor. This actually didn't seem too hard…   
********  
Next chapter to come soon! I'm serious this time, I'm getting back in the groove! 


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